Newspaper scopes trial

Wells was approached early on to present the case for evolution, but he turned down the offer. Clarence Darrow — a famous attorney who had recently acted for the defense in the notorious Leopold and Loeb murder trial — found out about the Scopes trial through journalist H. Mencken , who suggested Darrow should defend Scopes.

Darrow and Bryan already had a history of butting heads over evolution and the concept of taking the Bible literally, sparring in the press and public debates. It was the only time in his career he offered to give free legal aid. Bryan and Darrow set the tone by immediately attacking each other in the press. The ACLU attempted to remove Darrow from the case, fearing they would lose control, but none of these efforts worked. The grand jury met on May 9, In preparation, Scopes recruited and coached students to testify against him.

Three of the seven students attending were called to testify, each showing a sketchy understanding of evolution. The case was pushed forward and a trial set for July Bryan arrived in Dayton three days before the trial, stepping off a train to the spectacle of half the town greeting him. He posed for photo opportunities and gave two public speeches, stating his intention to not only defend the anti-evolution law but to use the trial to debunk evolution entirely.

The trial day started with crowds pouring into the courthouse two hours before it was scheduled to begin, filling up the room and causing onlookers to spill into the hallways. There was applause when Bryan entered the court and further when he and Darrow shook hands. The trial began — somewhat ironically — with a lengthy prayer. Outside the courthouse a circus-like atmosphere reigned, with barbecues, concessions and carnival games, though that died down as the trial was adjourned for the weekend, over which Bryan and Darrow sparred through the press and tensions mounted.

It was to a packed courthouse on Monday that arguments began by the defense working to establish the scientific validity of evolution, while the prosecution focused on the Butler Act as an education standard for Tennessee citizens, citing precedents. The statement Darrow made is considered an example of his best passionate public speaking. He spoke for over two hours. The trial itself began on Wednesday with opening statements.

Witnesses followed, establishing that Scopes had taught evolution and zoologist Maynard M. Metcalf gave expert testimony about the science of evolution, a signal that Scopes himself would not take the stand during the trial.

Subsequent days saw prosecutors argue about the validity of using expert witnesses. This case illustrated the problem of fake news , as the atheist , bigoted reporter H. Mencken distorted what happened at the trial and misled the world about it. A review of the transcript reveals that William Jennings Bryan got the better of Clarence Darrow , and yet Mencken reported the opposite in an extreme manner.

Indeed, Darrow himself gave up and asked the jury to find his client John Scopes guilty, so that the cowardly Darrow could renege on his promise to take the witness stand himself in exchange for cross-examining Bryan.

Darrow agreed, but then right after interrogating Bryan, [Darrow] directed the judge to find Scopes guilty, thereby closing the evidence and thus preventing Bryan from interrogating Darrow. The trial gained notoriety after it was dramatized in a grossly false manner for both stage and screen , bizarrely entitled Inherit the Wind. Both of these false dramatizations were promoted to try to smear Christianity.

The impetus for the Scopes trial began in a meeting among town leaders at a drugstore in Dayton, Tennessee, in response to a newspaper advertisement placed by the American Civil Liberties Union ACLU offering to provide legal services to anyone willing to be prosecuted under the Butler Act. Fundamentalists took up the challenge, led by theologian William Bell Riley , who signed up Bryan to assist the local county prosecutor. The national media rushed to Dayton.

Racing other Tennessee towns, Judge John T. Raulston accelerated the convening of the grand jury and " Darrow brought the Scopes case in the hopes of winning a public relations and legal victory. Historians typically believe in evolution and declare victory for Darrow, but in fact Darrow and the ACLU lost the case badly and Tennessee continued to limit the teaching of evolution in public schools for roughly another 50 years.

The ACLU challenged a Tennessee statute, the Butler Act, that imposed a fine for teaching in government schools that man descended from more primitive life forms. The statute did not prohibit teaching most aspects of evolution. The textbook at issue in the case suggested indirectly through a tree-like diagram that man descended from lower life forms. Bryan attacked Darrow in court, noting how Darrow had previously claimed that murder defendants Leopold and Loeb were driven to crime by what they were taught, which was Nietzsche 's atheistic philosophy.

Bryan quoted Darrow as saying that "Is there any blame attached because somebody took Nietzsche's philosophy seriously and fashioned his life on it? The university would be more to blame than he is. Your honor, it is hardly fair to hang a year-old boy for the philosophy that was taught him at the university. Bryan was an extraordinary speaker, recognized to be among the best in American history. Darrow wanted to prevent Bryan from making a persuasive closing argument to the jury, and Darrow searched for another way to try to score points for his side.

So Darrow stunned the court by requesting to cross-examine Bryan, in the hope that Bryan, like many attorneys, would be a poor witness. Darrow's attempt was unprecedented, because trial attorneys almost never take the witness stand in their own cases. Bryan agreed. A witness in a trial is always at a disadvantage on cross-examination, because he can only answer questions that are posed by a hostile adversary.

On cross-examination, Attorneys are allowed to ask leading yes or no questions to force the desired response, unlike on direct examination. Radio and newspaper reporters flocked to Dayton; spectators crowded the courthouse; and food vendors, blind minstrels, street preachers and banner-waving fundamentalists fueled the carnival atmosphere. A performing chimpanzee was even employed to entertain the crowd as a mock witness for the defense. Political cartoonists, newspaper journalists and photographers captured the town in all its theatrics.

On the table is posted a sign that reads:. Perhaps the men had not quite grasped the extent to which Dayton was being ridiculed around the country as a reservoir of ignorance and zealotry.

Taken by local college student William Silverman, the photo is among many that have been added to the Smithsonian Institution Archives in the past decade, long after historians thought they had seen everything there was to see relating to the Scopes trial.

It provides a glimpse into the rich back story of the trial and its surrounding events. The photo was donated after the archives posted a collection of new images discovered by historian Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette.

A research associate at the Archives, LaFollette says hidden gems like these occasionally come to historians when people have the foresight to preserve original materials.

She knows about hidden gems. In , she had been researching a book on the history of science in radio when she found a box in the collection from journalist Watson Davis. He was the managing editor of Science Service , a syndicated news wire providing stories on science to the media.

AP Photo, used with permission from the Associated Press. Mencken applied to the prosecution of a criminal action brought by the state of Tennessee against high school teacher John T. In the case Scopes v. The case arose when, seeking to test the constitutional validity of the Butler Act, the American Civil Liberties Union ACLU placed advertisements in Tennessee newspapers offering to pay the expenses of any teacher willing to challenge the law.

George W. Scopes also taught math and general science, and, on occasion, substituted for the principal in biology. Among the many ironies at the Scopes trial, two surrounded the textbook at the center of the controversy.

First, Tennessee mandated that George W. Yet Bryan volunteered to join the prosecution team because he opposed the theory of evolution for its association with eugenics and with social Darwinism. Darrow was a legendary lawyer.